Whoa.
When the Girl Scouts of America hosted a recent debate regarding reality TV and its impact on youth development, the Girl Scout Research Institute reported that half of the girls they surveyed believed reality shows are “mainly real and unscripted.”
Kimberlee Salmond, senior researcher for the Institute in this report in Advertising Age further suggested that “girls are getting cues from the media on how to be– digesting it as a role model of what the real world should be.”
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As a parent, this is way too much responsibility I would want to give to anyone and any group, even the media industry which has been known to feed my family via marketing communications for 20-plus years. I would caution those of us who care for our tweens (shorthand for nine to 12 year olds) and teens to keep an eye on the effect this media can have on this audience.
Love it or hate it, there are few among us who can say that they haven’t been exposed to some version of reality TV and the fact is, the shows have multiplied in number because the programming is so cheap to produce for ratings. However it is not great for advertisers and especially not network syndication -- once the winner is crowned in a cooking/dancing/singing contest for example. According to the New York Times, most cable stations are changing the tide – from subsisting on reality shows to developing original scripted shows on their schedules.
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But until that becomes more of the norm, how to separate the Snooki from the Shakespeare? And how to separate the fiction from the “real” in the “reality”?
Speaking as a parent first and a marketer second, I would suggest taking the time to screen these shows with and without your kids, identifying the editing, even the drama that is often staged among the spokespeople, the models, the actors and contestants to make “great” television.
Then, with exposure to the right reinforcement of “real” (ie. ones you can touch) role models – family members, teachers, coaches, leaders we might be able to help inspire these young minds. Ideally help them to think of the world – and their world -- outside of the TV screen.
After all, reality TV is all about entertainment and building an audience – not enrichment and building character. That’s still left to families to do – and personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
